


Something for Nothing

by churchkey



Series: Long Ago and Far Away (Canon Winnix) [4]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alcoholism, Episode: s01e08 The Last Patrol, M/M, Mild Angst, Series canon, Shaving, ennui, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey
Summary: As he tucked the tails of his scarf under the lapels of his jacket, Dick nodded toward the vanity, the razor lined up neatly on the towel.“More blades in my kit,” he said. “Help yourself.”But that was the trouble and they both knew it. Lew couldn’t help himself if he tried._____Part IV in a series but works as a standalone
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Series: Long Ago and Far Away (Canon Winnix) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739950
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	Something for Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> "All you can take with you is that which you've given away."
> 
> \-- Motto on the wall of Peter Bailey's office in _It's a Wonderful Life,_ 1946

For all he liked to think of his success as the product of his own merit, Nix wondered sometimes if he’d been promoted to S2 based solely on pedigree, by someone who knew someone who knew someone for whom his dad had done a favor twenty years ago. He imagined them nodding in recognition at the beams of rarefied light emanating from his transfer application and dropping the rest of the pile summarily into the trash.

And he had to admit, the role had fit him like an Italian leather driving glove. Growing up in the world of country clubs and lake homes, he was used to the sort of men who haunted Regimental HQ, like those guys he always saw lurking around the Yale Club at 3:00 p.m. on a Wednesday. Surely they had somewhere else to be, some meaningful work to do, but there they were, every day, because it was the most exclusive room into which their wealth and privilege afforded them entry. 

He’d known men like that his whole life, and they were the same everywhere. Business, philanthropy, academia, politics; it didn’t matter. The Army, of course, was the most political of all, full of men whose only guiding impulse was the recognition of their own great importance. Who surrounded themselves with people who made them feel important and promoted those people far beyond their level of competence. Who talked about the real people doing all the actual work like they were moveable parts, just pins on a map. One pin for an entire battalion. Three hundred guys. One fucking pin. No wonder they thought nothing of keeping them on the line after Bastogne, after Foy. 

At first he’d felt at home among their cigars and Vitalis and two fingers of single malt in cut crystal glasses. He knew just how to talk to them, had learned the patterns of that insouciant banter while he was still in the womb. But lately all he could think about was throwing that fine crystal glass at the wall as hard as he could, just to hear it shatter, send the pieces skittering across the floor like a cluster bomb.

He wasn’t sure when it had happened, exactly. Maybe around the time Dick was moved up and started spending more time in those smoky rooms, and Lew saw how starkly he stuck out, like a bald light bulb in a hazy bordello. He’d stand there with his mouth half-open, dipping his head forward as he tried to insert himself into their conversations, and they’d swallow him up like he wasn’t even there. 

Lew was always vaguely embarrassed for Dick to see him among them. It reminded him of all those rooms his money had bought him entry into throughout his life, and he felt a detached sense of shame that even here, he couldn’t escape it. That Dick would see right through any attempt to pretend that he wasn’t right where he belonged. 

At that point, he’d begun to tire of it. And then he began to hate it, to dread the moment when he’d have to ride back to HQ and smile magnanimously and laugh at their jokes and pay them the unearned tribute of his deference and good humor. So he faked it. Which, it turned out, was a job he was also uniquely qualified for. But he could feel it starting to wear on him, and he always felt like the agreeable smile on his face was one degree shy of madness. 

Soon after they’d arrived in Haguenau, he’d checked in like the diligent little bootlicker they knew him to be. He’d explained as much about the plan as Sink had wanted to hear; just the broad strokes, not the details. It was his job to hammer those out, his and Dick’s, and the Colonel was satisfied just knowing that they’d seen to it. Now he could hang out there and listen to another goddamn fairy tale about the indomitable 506th, offering the obligatory rapt attention and flattery, or he could go back to the CP and watch Dick shave. 

It was not a difficult decision.

*** 

Dick had taken the largest bedroom on the second floor, a corner room with windows on two walls. The weak light filtering through them made everything look gray and washed-out; he supposed they were all a bit washed-out by now. Nix stood in the doorway and looked around the room, at the white paint chipping off the iron rungs of the bed; at the layer of dust covering the faded woven rug on the floor; at Dick, standing at the vanity in fresh trousers and undershirt, pouring water into a basin from a cracked pitcher that had once been painted with tiny pink roses. 

He looked up when he saw Nix leaning against the doorframe. 

“Well how’d that go?” 

Lew crossed his arms and lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Fine. No change.” 

Dick nodded pensively at the floor. “Alright. Good.” 

His voice had taken on a tone that Lew knew well by now, a combination of anxious and reassuring, like he was talking himself into something he didn’t quite believe yet, but he’d get there eventually. 

He looked back up at Lew. “Did you get my soap?”

Lew smirked as he reached into his jacket pocket. “Catch.” 

The tube banked off of Dick’s torso and his hand sprung up reflexively to keep from dropping it. His eyebrows shot up, impressed, as he read the label. 

“I haven’t seen actual shaving cream since Mourmelon.” 

There was a note of playful accusation in his voice, and for the briefest moment it felt like they were back in Georgia, when every word they said to each other was heavy with another layer of meaning.

Nix just tipped his head to the side and shuffled across the weathered floorboards to the bed. “Privileges of rank,” he said as he sat down, the bedsprings groaning under his weight. 

“Stealing from the Colonel? That’s bold, even for you.”

“I’d never steal from a colonel.” The edge of Lew’s mouth lifted in a sly grin. “Now a lieutenant colonel, on the other hand…” 

Dick just unrolled his wash kit, mumbling something about feeling like a gangster’s mistress. 

They were small and trivial, more habit than anything else at this point, but these little gifts had become the currency of his love. It had started at OCS, when Dick had run out of stamps one day and asked Lew to pick some up for him, if he’d be going by the PX, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. He’d pay him back of course. Lew hadn’t let him, making a joke about how he’d forgotten Dick’s birthday. 

After that it developed into a ritual, just little things that he could get through his connections, perks Dick was entitled to as an officer but never enjoyed unless forced to. New uniforms the moment his showed signs of wear. A saved seat in the front row at movie screenings. Gum he’d scrounged from ration kits. And always, no matter where they were, a cup of coffee. Watching the unfeigned pleasure that washed over Dick’s entire body when he lifted the cup to his nose and inhaled the steam, the profound sense of peace that consumed him as he took that first sip, made Lew want nothing more than to live out his days as the lucky bastard who brought Dick his morning coffee.

And what did Lew get in return for all these gifts? That was the beauty of it. There was nothing transactional about what they had, nothing at all. His love for Dick was generous and abiding and Dick loved him back with revolutionary patience. Lew marvelled at the perfection of it. This was love that asked nothing of him, that built him up and made him feel strong.

And the less Dick asked for, the more Lew wanted to give him. 

Dick squeezed a mound of shaving cream into his palm and used the pads of his fingers to brush it onto his cheeks and chin. Lew watched him from the bed, leaning back on his elbows. 

“Talk to Speirs yet?”

“I want to brief the guys first.”

“Thought you were letting him deal with it.” 

“I am, I just -” Dick paused to drag the edge of the safety razor carefully down his right cheek. “Feel like they should hear it from us.” 

_Us_. Nix loved the way he talked about them like they were interchangeable, complementary parts of one cohesive whole. He knew that the men thought of them that way too, and it gratified him in a way he never examined very closely.

“I’m sure they’d appreciate that,” Lew said. “But at some point you’re gonna have to let him take over. For real, I mean.”

Dick tipped his head back to shave under his chin. When he spoke again, his voice was calm but tight with concentration.

“I want them to know that we understand what we’re asking them to do.”

He flicked the razor back and forth through the cloudy water in the basin and shook it off. Lew raised himself from the bed and walked up to stand next to him, facing his side so that his stomach was pressed against Dick’s hip. He hooked his fingers through a belt loop of Dick’s trousers and pulled him an inch closer. 

“What time is this briefing?” he murmured, brushing his lips against the short bristly hairs at the back of Dick’s neck. He smelled so clean and fresh, like the new pine barracks they were rushing to erect in those early days at Toccoa. Lew would never forget that smell.

Dick huffed a weary laugh. “Not tonight, honey.” 

“Don’t tell me you’ve got another headache.” Lew was trying for sexy but it just came out sounding tired.

Dick went on shaving, stretching his upper lip over his teeth to get his cupid’s bow. 

“No, just trying to end the war.”

Lew stepped back and leaned his hip against the vanity. He didn’t offer encouragement or false optimism. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost that ability to cheer him up with his cocky insistence that everything would work out fine. If he tried it now, he wasn’t sure he’d recognize his own voice. Now the best they could be for each other was honest. 

Dick tapped the razor against the edge of the basin. “Better get a shower before the water’s gone.” He wiped his face with the towel he’d draped over his shoulder. 

“I will.”

Dick looked at him and turned his head left and right for Lew to inspect. “Did I get all of it?”

Lew’s gaze drifted down Dick’s face. His eyes seemed to have faded and his cheeks were pale, the bones more prominent. The worry lines etched into his forehead and deep grooves framing his mouth made him look like he’d aged a decade since they'd left Holland. Lew smiled faintly at him and rubbed away a smudge of shaving cream under his earlobe. 

“Spit and polish.” 

Instantly, he missed the patina. Dick had washed away the grime of those weeks and now it was like they had never happened, those nights they'd clung to each other against the cold and the mortars falling all around them and the world ending and the cries of the wounded slicing the air like a knife.

He was standing right there in front of him, but Lew was already beginning to miss him. It made no sense.

Dick shook out a clean shirt and slid his arms through the sleeves. Within seconds, the intimacy had vanished and they were standing there as they always did, in between stations, neither embarking nor arrived. Just moving, always moving, never stopping for very long. As he tucked the tails of his scarf under the lapels of his jacket, Dick nodded toward the vanity, the razor lined up neatly on the towel. 

“More blades in my kit,” he said. “Help yourself.” 

But that was the trouble, and they both knew it. Lew couldn’t help himself if he tried. 

***

He’d felt the tremors as soon as he’d woken up that morning. It had been a restless night anyway. Every few minutes he could hear bed springs creak as Dick, in the next room, tossed and turned chasing an hour or two of sleep himself. Then it was the floorboards as he paced the room, the scrape of chair legs as he sat down at the makeshift desk they’d fashioned out of two side tables and a plank of door salvaged from the rubble. 

Maybe it had happened during those cold nights sleeping in the ground, when his body had become so attuned to the rhythm of Dick’s, and now he only slept when Dick did, was hungry when Dick was. Felt the deep ache of his worry and his frustrations and the toll of his fight to just keep them all alive. 

He’d allowed himself one. Just one little sip to assure his blood that it wasn’t time to panic quite yet. But that had been nearly four hours ago, and now he could feel the shaking coming back into hands again, the sweat beginning to bead on the back of his neck, his forehead, under his arms. He looked at the prisoners; heads down, blank as stone. The MP’s were staring out the back of the truck, hawk-eyed. They took their job more seriously than anyone he’d ever met.

He’d survived on so little in the Bois Jacques, that need satisfied by all the tactical scrabbling and perseverating over leadership and the work of just keeping Dick warm and healthy, seeing to it that he ate something sometimes. They had such purpose then and it was enough to convince himself that maybe he didn’t need it after all. If he was strong enough to survive the sub-zero nights and incessant artillery barrage and that march out of Foy in snow that was knee-deep, surely he could take a few days of fever and nausea and being an absolute prick to anyone dumb enough to darken his doorstep.

And wouldn’t Dick be proud? Wouldn’t this be the very best gift Lew could give him? Wouldn’t he look at him the way he used to when they’d first met, when the late day sun ringed his head like a halo and Lew was struck with the divine truth that Dick was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. When Lew, who didn’t believe in God, had had to fight the urge to drop to his knees in prayer, _Dear Lord, let him smile like that again, let him always smile at me just like that._

But now, as the rumble of the truck only made the shaking worse, as his head pounded, as he anticipated draping that heavy cloak of gracious obedience around his weary shoulders, he knew he was kidding himself. Drying out would make him so sick he’d be laid up in the hospital for weeks, maybe even sent home. The shame of that… it was unthinkable. He’d sooner blow his brains out with that Luger he’d found for Dick after the assault on Noville. 

No. For all of his fantasizing about breaking free and really being the man Dick thought he was or could be, he knew he’d never be able to give it up. Not here. He wasn’t that strong. The best he could do was try to cut his rations and pretend he had it all under control. He hoped Dick wouldn’t hold it against him if he just took one more drink to steel himself before he had to face the brass and break into another vaudeville routine, _The prisoners you asked for sir! Our deepest pleasure to oblige!_

No, he hoped Dick wouldn’t begrudge him that. 

***

They stood together, looking silently across the river. Though Nix was acutely aware of Speirs’ presence a few feet behind them, it still felt like they were alone. That was a weird skill Speirs had, making you feel like he only observed what you wanted him to see, even if he was standing right next to you. Lew was certain he'd figured out about him and Dick, and if he’d seen any evidence that the man had a good side, he’d do everything he could to stay on it. As it was, he just tried to stay out of his way. 

“So I’ll brief ‘em now, sir?” 

Nix checked to make sure Sink was out of earshot, and then looked at Dick. 

“He’d never have to know.” 

Dick gave a nod so faint it was almost imperceptible. 

It wasn’t permission, or even validation, just proof of his steadfast support. It was relentless and unwavering, a promise that Nix would always stand next to him, no matter what. If nothing else, Dick would always have that. Maybe it was the most valuable gift he’d been able to give him all along. 

“No,” Dick said over his shoulder to Speirs. “I’ll do it.” 

They turned and walked together into the dusky basement of the CP.

***

Nix punched the keys of the typewriter with cold, stiff fingers. The phrases came easily, the passive voice and abstruse prose seeming to write itself. He wished he had the report from the patrol that actually happened to compare it to, but he was confident in his ability to describe in vivid detail things that had never occurred. He’d had enough practice at that lying in his bunk at Fort Benning, before he’d had the faintest idea of what he really wanted. Of what Dick wanted. Of what was possible. 

“Hey Nix, you know, that’s not literature. Keep it simple.” 

Dick lay on the bed, jacket off, boots crossed at his ankles. There was an aura of puckish vitality hovering around him that Lew hadn’t seen since Holland. He looked up from the page, a cigarette dangling between his lips. 

“How long you been waiting to say that to me?” 

Dick smirked, shrugged. Lew went back to typing. In his periphery he could see Dick’s boot begin to jiggle. He seemed full of nervous energy, like changing the plans so flagrantly had filled him with a sort of freedom he wasn’t quite sure how to handle. Was it possible he’d never broken a rule in all his life, felt that invincible arrogance of realizing you actually _can_ do whatever the fuck you want? 

“How about now?” Dick asked a few minutes later. “Done yet?”

“Christ’s sake,” Lew whined. “Just let me do my job in peace.” 

“What’s your problem?” A flirty lilt had crept into Dick’s voice. “Haven’t you heard? They’re taking us off the line.”

“Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lew muttered. 

“If you don’t hurry it up, I’m gonna start without you.” 

He looked up from the typewriter. Dick was sliding his palm slowly up and down the front of his trousers. Lew sat back in his chair and took a long drag off his cigarette.

“Look at the state of you,” he said quietly. “Disobeying orders really winds you up, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, don’t get any ideas.” 

Dick’s hand moved lower to grip his balls. Lew couldn’t ignore that the bulge at his fly had grown noticeably. 

“Then stop giving me ideas.” 

Dick just held his gaze as he began unbuttoning his pants. He reached inside and Lew saw the outline of his knuckles moving under the cloth of his shorts. 

Nix took a deep breath and stubbed out his cigarette. He stood and walked toward the bed, stopping at the foot and knocking his knee against the instep of Dick’s boot. 

“I told Harry I’d have a drink with him.” 

Downstairs, he could hear voices, someone tunelessly banging out “The Streets of Laredo” on the piano. 

“Have a drink with me.” 

“You don’t drink.” 

“Oh yeah." A smile crept slowly onto Dick's face. He reached a hand toward Lew. “Then have sex with me.” 

Lew nodded toward the door. “Does that lock?”

Dick shook his head. “It doesn’t even shut all the way.”

Lew studied the door for a moment, considering. He exhaled a heavy sigh.

“Then I guess we’d better make this quick.”

He lowered himself onto the bed, first one knee and then the other. Dick sat up and grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling Lew down to lie on top of him. At first they just kissed for a while, Lew propped on one elbow, his other hand slowly trailing up Dick’s chest under his shirt. Dick had one hand on the back of Lew’s neck and the other pressed to the small of his back. 

He knew Dick probably wouldn’t believe it if he tried to tell him, but sometimes Lew thought this was enough, to press his mouth to Dick’s firm, full lips, feel the brush of his tongue against his own. What it still did to him, after all this time; he felt his cock stiffen rapidly, pressed hard against the join of Dick’s hip and thigh. Then he felt Dick’s hand fumbling at his fly and Lew slipped his hand between their hips to help him open the buttons. 

How many times had they done this, he wondered. Leaning against a barracks wall or seated side by side in shadowed corners of administrative buildings. How many foxholes and offices after dark, how much of their love had they spilled out onto this desolate land, left as proof that they’d been here and given pleasure to each other and stolen moments for each other and propped each other up like tent poles. 

Lew shifted to lie on his side and their legs twined together as they stroked each other, hips rolling in waves as they fucked each other’s hand. Sex like this was so expedient; they hadn’t even taken their boots off. But it never felt that way to Lew. These times with Dick, always tinged with urgency and the constant, lurking fear of being found out, were still more erotic than all the sex he’d ever had in fine bedrooms or swanky hotels or on tuck and roll upholstery of expensive cars. That he could be so enraptured by a handjob - at his age! It astonished him. 

Dick was making noises against his mouth, breathy little whimpers that betrayed how close he was, how hard he was working not to lose all control. 

“Lew?” 

He had no idea what it did to Lew to hear him say his name like that, his voice faltering and strained, asking for permission he knew he didn’t need. Offering Lew another opportunity to give him something, and knowing that he was the only one who gave this to him, and falling impossibly deeper in love with him every time. 

“It’s okay,” Lew whispered. “Go ahead.”

Dick opened his eyes and locked his gaze with Lew’s. It was only a moment but it was long enough for a strange thought to occur to him, one he’d had before. Somehow it felt like the margins of the world had dissolved around them, and it was just them, here in this bombed out house in the last days of the war, just him and Dick, forever like this. Then Dick closed his eyes again and his mouth dropped open and his body jerked. He turned his head to press into the pillow and ejaculated into the dark place between their hips. 

They lay still for a while, Dick taking long, deep breaths as Lew rubbed his palm in languid circles against his chest. He felt Dick’s heartbeat begin to slow. Dick turned his face and smiled at Lew and Christ, he was gorgeous like this. Maybe the war had sharpened his edges a bit and maybe the boyish glint in his eyes was gone for good, but that smile was deathless. 

“Thank you,” Dick said quietly, his cheek propped in his palm. “I think I really needed that.” 

Lew smiled back at him and took his other hand in his, lacing their fingers together and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. 

“It’s an honor.”

Dick chuckled because he assumed Lew was joking, but he wasn’t. He was completely serious. It was the greatest privilege of his otherwise absurd and miserable life. 

He closed his eyes and lay back against the bed as he felt Dick’s strong fingers wrap around his cock. Only a few strokes and he was fully hard again and not long after that he was coming, his whole body seizing up for one still moment before the dizzying freefall back down to earth. 

When it was over, they lay facing each other, arms wrapped loosely around shoulders and waists. They kissed and chuckled at each other in that stupid, goofy, drunk in the afterglow way. Dick lay his palm on Lew’s cheek and rubbed it through the scruff of his beard.

“I thought you were going to get rid of this.” 

Lew ducked his head to nuzzle the sensitive skin behind Dick’s ear. “I thought you liked it.” 

“It tickles,” Dick said bluntly. 

“In all the right places…” 

Lew dragged his face in more dramatic arcs back and forth along Dick’s neck. Dick wriggled away from him. 

“What do you need, an ultimatum?” 

Lew laughed. “A little late for that. Are you sure you know how those work?” 

Dick shook his head lazily, rolled his eyes. Lew stroked his beard. He thought he’d hang on to it just a little while longer. He’d had it through the hardest and best days of the war, after all, when they’d made a heaven of hell on earth, a couple of fallen angels cast out of paradise so they’d built one of their own. And it hadn’t cost them a thing. 

Fuck paradise. They had something better. Even if it was already behind them.


End file.
